


The Deadliest Foe

by jontracy



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag: s02e15 Murdoc + Handcuffs, Gen, Hurt MacGyver, Hurt/Comfort, Major Illness, Team as Family, Worried!Jack, Worried!Team
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-03-20 23:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13728735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jontracy/pseuds/jontracy
Summary: Sometimes, it's long after the bullets stop flying that the real dangers arise. Sometimes, those are the dangers that threaten to steal the most.The shot that took Mac down was a through-and-through. Painful, but not life-threatening. A few days later though, that changes.Tag to episode 2x15: Murdoc + Handcuffs





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been a fan of the new MacGyver show for a while now, but this is my first fic for the fandom. I've often found myself disappointed by the missed opportunities for hurt/comfort in the show, so this is my attempt to rectify that a little.
> 
> Enjoy!

Four days had passed since Murdoc put a bullet in Mac's shoulder. Three days had passed since Jack brought Mac home from the hospital to a warm reception from their friends. Two days had passed since Murdoc kidnapped his son and disappeared into the wind. One day had passed since Jack went to work without his partner. Almost an hour had passed since Mac’s last phone call to try to “help.” Which meant that any minute now…

Jack reached for his phone on the first ring, shaking his head.

“You know, paid time off is something most people appreciate,” he told his partner without preamble. “It’s like a free vacation.”

“Yeah, getting shot has been a real party,” came Mac’s dry answer. “How’s the case going?”

“Oh, you know, I actually just found something I thought you might be interested in. Oh, here it is: it’s a note from your doctor saying that _you were shot and need to rest_.”

“Very funny. I wasn’t shot in the head, Jack; my brain still works fine. I can help from here.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

“Listen, I know this may be hard for you to believe, but the rest of us are actually pretty good at our jobs. We can get by without you for a couple days.”

“Oh, so you found Murdoc and his kidnapped child? That’s impressive.”

Pulling his phone away from his ear, Jack scowled at the device. Realizing the futility of that, he raised it again.

“We’re working on it,” he said.

“Has he killed anyone besides the assassin teacher yet?”

The reminder made Jack check his computer screen with a grimace. He’d been reading the report on the grisly murder when Mac called. Murdoc seemed to have taken his time with the poor SOB.

“Not that we know of,” Jack said. “Now, will you please - please, for me, as your partner - act like a normal human being and go back to enjoying your week of freedom so that I can get back to wading through this psycho’s body trail?”

There was a little more grumbling, but Mac hung up with a reluctant promise not to try sneaking into Phoenix the next day.

*****

Jack ended up working late that night. Despite his assurances to Mac, they weren’t making much progress with the Murdoc case. To make matters worse, the body of another assassin had turned up, mutilated and abandoned in a no-tell motel a couple miles outside the city.

There would be more. Jack had gotten a better glimpse into that whackjob’s head than he’d ever wanted to, and it’d been enough to convince him of that. Murdoc may have seemed calm and steady, but the guy had a vindictive streak a mile wide, and he didn’t seem like the type to make empty threats. He’d keep killing the people who’d wronged him until he got caught or killed, or he finished.

Jack went out to the crime scene himself with Bozer, and by mutual, unspoken agreement, returned to Phoenix and stayed there. It was long after the end of the business day, but Jack couldn’t forget Murdoc’s weird obsession with Mac. He wouldn’t feel comfortable about his partner’s safety until the assassin was back behind bars. Or, preferably, under six feet of dirt.

Despite their efforts though, the night didn’t turn out to be very fruitful. The following day was little better, and by the end of it, Jack knew he needed a break.

It required no thought at all to set a course for Mac’s house, rather than his own apartment. It was only when he was almost there, when he was finally switching out of work mode, that it occurred to him he hadn't heard from Mac all day. Not even a snarky comment or a poorly disguised attempt to get involved in the Murdoc investigation.

Jack frowned as he turned onto the sloping street that led to Mac's house. Something didn't feel right about that. Mac hated being left out of shit, and he'd been a near-constant pain in the ass since his injury. It was one of the ways Jack had known he was doing okay.

The harsh lessons of experience sent a sick feeling of unease creeping through Jack’s gut. He’d thought home was the safest place for Mac to be, but how many times had he been attacked there? Jack should never have left him alone there so long.

But Jack also had a long history of worrying over nothing. There was as good a chance that Mac had just been resting per Jack’s request, and refraining from the constant check-ins out of consideration for his partner.

Even as he convinced himself he was overreacting, Jack still couldn't help but take the last half mile to the house a little faster than he should have.

Mac's car was still there, but that didn't necessarily mean much. The car had been there when Mac was kidnapped from his own home, and when they'd both been locked in the house with a giant bomb rigged to blow them to hell.

Despite his best efforts, Jack was really working himself up now. He ran to the house and let himself in, not bothering to knock.

"Mac?" he called, trying to keep the alarm out of his voice so as to avoid earning himself mockery later. "You there, buddy?"

He didn't get an answer, but as he stepped further into the house, he saw why.

Hands braced on his thighs, Jack bent over and let out a long, heavy breath. He shook his head, chiding himself.

Mac was lying on his couch, bundled in blankets up to his chin and sound asleep.

"You're gonna give yourself a heart attack, Dalton," Jack muttered to himself, backing out of the living room and heading for the kitchen instead.

Mac, Riley, Bozer - hell, even Matty accused him of being too much of a worrywart. They teased him about it, told him he needed to ease up before he gave himself more grey hairs.

That was easy for them to say. None of them, bless their young, bright-eyed souls, had seen the kinds of things he had. They'd never suffered the kinds of losses he had, never been burdened with the kind of guilt that could crush a person. Mac perhaps understood the best, but even his perspective was a little filtered, existed on a smaller scale.

Not that Jack would've wanted it any other way. He would give anything to shield his teammates, his family, from the kinds of burdens he carried, even if it meant enduring their teasing.

As his heartbeat returned to a normal rhythm, Jack dug around in the fridge, rooting out a can of beer and a container of dip. After extracting a bag of pretzels from the pantry, he returned to the living room and flopped down into an armchair. He settled in, planning on staying until Mac woke up and kicked him out, or he had to go back to work, whichever came first.

He was in the middle of using his newly-issued replacement phone to check on his fantasy football team when he shot a casual glance at Mac.

That was when he realized just how many blankets Mac had managed to gather around himself. The kid looked like a burrito. Which had been funny at first, but it was now dawning on Jack that he himself was sitting comfortably in a t-shirt, the ambient temperature of the room hovering somewhere in the mid-seventies.

Setting aside his snacks, Jack got to his feet and approached the couch, drawing closer to peer down at his friend. His stomach dropped.

Mac's cheeks were flushed an unnatural pink, but the rest of his face was sallow and ashen, coated in a visible sheen of sweat. Jack reached out, and could feel the heat radiating from Mac's body before he'd even made contact.

Jack was no doctor, but he knew this wasn't normal.

"Mac?" he called, peeling back three layers of blankets and cupping his hand behind Mac's neck. "Rise and shine, buddy. Can you hear me?"

When he got no response, he gave his partner a light shake.

"Mac!"

The combination got a result this time, such as it was. Mac's eyelids fluttered, and he let out a moan, turning his head away from Jack in an instinctive attempt to avoid the noise. The reaction didn’t give Jack any sense of relief. Not when it told him just how out of it his partner really was.

"Hey, come on now," Jack coaxed. "I know you like the sound of my voice, don't even try to deny it. Look at me Mac, come on."

He still had a hand at Mac's neck, and he could feel the racing flutter of a pulse that was far faster than it should have been. Mac groaned again, trying to curl deeper into the couch, away from Jack. His breathing was audible, a rapid, rasping sound Jack should've heard earlier.

Gut curdling with a nasty suspicion now, Jack reached for the hem of Mac's MIT t-shirt, pulling it up to expose his torso. He let out a low hiss, and then a few words he'd learned in Delta for good measure.

The area around Mac's wound was an angry, inflamed red. The bandage over the wound was stained pinkish yellow, and Jack recognized the distinctive smell of infection. He swore again and reached for Mac's face, cupping it in his hands and turning it towards him.

"Mac!" he yelled now, tapping sharply on his cheek. "I'm not playing around here, open your eyes and look at me, man."

Fear made his voice sharp, and cloudy blue eyes blinked open at last to look at him. They didn't make Jack feel any better. There was no recognition in them, no spark of the life and intelligence that usually lit them.

"Whassuh..." Mac groaned, his voice a mumbling slur. He tried to squirm away from Jack's grip with zero success. "Sl-ppp."

"No, you're not going back to sleep. You hear me, Mac? Keep your eyes open."

But Mac didn’t listen.

*****

Bozer saw the distinctive flashing lights of the ambulance before anything else. He gave them a look of passing curiosity as he drove closer, wondering if one of the neighbors had suffered a heart attack. Most of his and Mac's neighbors were older, and it wouldn't have been the first time. If that were the case, he'd have to be sure to make something for the family.

But as he drew closer, he saw that the lights belonged to an ambulance parked in his own driveway. And he knew.

"Mac."

Bozer damn near forgot to put the car in park before scrambling from it and running towards the house. A thousand different thoughts raced through his head during the short trip. Had Mac been attacked again? Had Murdoc returned for him?

He reached the door just as it was swinging open. He backpedaled, arms flailing, just managing to get out of the way of someone in a crisp uniform backing out onto the front step, pulling-

"Mac!" Bozer said again, louder and more urgently.

His best, oldest friend was lying motionless on the stretcher, a fogged oxygen mask over his ghostly face, his eyes closed and sunken. Bozer reached for him on instinct, but he was already gone, the EMT and paramedic rushing him to the waiting ambulance.

A half-second later, another familiar figure followed them out the door.

"Jack! What happened? What's wrong with Mac?"

Evidently unwilling to stop, Jack grabbed Bozer by the arm and towed him after Mac and the ambulance crew.

"Did you talk to him today?” Jack demanded, rather than answering the questions.

"What?" Bozer's shocked, alarmed brain couldn't make sense of the question fast enough for Jack, and the older agent tightened his grip, shaking him.

"Did you talk to Mac today?” he repeated, more forcefully now as Mac's stretcher was loaded into the back of the ambulance. "Did you check in with him at all?”

“I texted him this morning, but nothing since then. Jack, you're scaring me. What happened to Mac?"

Seeming to realize what he was doing, Jack relinquished his grip on Bozer's arm and took a step away from him, reaching for the bridge of his nose instead.

"He's sick, Boze," he said, voice quieter now, but pained. "His wound, it got infected."

"Oh. Man."

Bozer stood on the balls of his feet, as if it would allow him to see through the tinted windows in the back doors of the ambulance. He didn't know too much about medicine, being a bit squeamish around blood. His near-fatal stabbing had given him some painful exposure though. He remembered the doctors and nurses checking his wound every once in a while, to make sure it was still healing properly, with no infection. But he didn't see how an infected gunshot wound would lead to Mac being unconscious and loaded into the back of an ambulance.

"He was fine this morning," Bozer said, a bit numb.

“Being able to text doesn't mean fine," Jack said. He probably didn't mean for it to sound like an accusation, but Bozer flinched nonetheless.

Jack headed for the side of the door of the ambulance, climbing inside. Bozer went to follow, but then stopped. He told himself it was because he didn't want to crowd the ambulance crew, but truthfully, he didn't think he could stand seeing Mac like that again.

So he was still standing there a minute later, when the ambulance rumbled into motion, its lights still flashing and its sirens starting to wail. He was still standing there, watching as his best friend was carried away from him to an uncertain future.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the great response so far! You guys are awesome.
> 
> I just wanted to make a note that while I did research to make the medical stuff as accurate as possible, I'm not a doctor, and this is fiction. So please take everything with a grain of salt, and forgive any medical errors. Enjoy!

The text from Bozer had been brief and alarming: _Mac 911_

Now, less than twenty minutes later, Riley was striding through automatic doors into a gust of air conditioning that made her shiver. She turned a corner and found herself in an ER waiting room she wished she didn't know quite so well.

A quick scan of her surroundings found Bozer sitting in a corner by a fake potted tree. Riley headed for him at once, even as her blood chilled at the expression on his face. He stood when he saw her approaching.

"What happened?" she asked, reaching out to grasp him by the shoulders. She'd tracked his phone to the hospital, but hadn't wanted to waste time searching for any additional information.

"Mac's shoulder got infected.”

Riley frowned, her nose wrinkling.

"I got an infection when I had my wisdom teeth taken out," she said. "My mouth puffed up and it hurt like hell for a few days, but the doctors treated it and it was no big deal. If that's all this is, what's with the 911?"

"I don't know, it was more than that," Bozer said. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, so he crossed his arms over his chest. "Mac...I only saw him for a second, but he was unconscious. He looked...bad, Riley."

The way his voice cracked at the end told her just how rattled he was. Her momentary relief faded.

"Where's Jack?" she asked. "Does he know?"

"He's the one who found Mac. He rode with him in the ambulance, but I haven't seen him since. He's probably still back there with him."

Riley nodded, forcing herself to think. She'd brought her laptop with her, and she considered hacking into the hospital's system so she could check Mac's file. But if he'd just gotten here, there wasn't likely to be much available. Still, his intake form would be able to tell her more than Bozer had.

Before she could make up her mind, a familiar figure appeared in the doorway to the ER proper and began to approach.

Jack looked like he'd just been hit by a truck. His face was pale, his eyes wide and a little dazed. Riley and Bozer went to him at once.

“How is he?” Riley asked. Jack shook his head, glancing out over the rows of chairs in the waiting room.

"They don't know yet,” he said heavily. “They had trouble waking him up, and then he was real out of it. Didn’t know where he was, what was happening…” His voice trailed off, hollow.

Riley peered at him. He was scared, she realized, just as scared as Bozer. The knowledge made her heart clench in her chest.

"I don't understand," she protested. "I mean, why...? What could do this? I get that his shoulder might be infected, but - I mean, not being able to wake up? Major disorientation? That sounds more like poison, doesn't it?"

Part of her hoped it was. Poisons had antidotes. Mystery illnesses didn't.

Jack grabbed her by the shoulders, looking at her with a new spark in his eyes.

"It does sound like poison, doesn't it?" he said. “Hell, Mac’s been poisoned like that already this year. Riley, you’re brilliant. Call Matty; have her send a team out to Mac's house. They need to sweep it top to bottom for something that could've done this. And tell her to double down on the search for Murdoc. If he's behind this, he might still be in the area."

Nodding, Riley pulled out her phone to comply. Bozer and Jack talked quietly while she spoke to Matty, who promised to dispatch a team to the house right away.

Once the call had ended, Jack led Riley and Bozer into the ER. It was set up in a rectangle around a central station for the doctors and nurses, the walls lined with patient rooms. Jack led them into room 8, but it was empty when they entered, without even a bed in it.

Remembering what Jack had said about Mac being taken away for testing, Riley sat down to wait in one of the padded blue chairs against the wall. Bozer took the second one, and Jack paced back and forth in front of them.

Unable to stand the tense silence, Riley extracted her laptop from her bag and began hacking into the hospital system. It took less time than it should have, and she made a mental note to beef up their security later. She pulled up the file that had been created for Mac years ago, and clicked through to find his most recent information.

His intake form listed a set of vitals, his personal information, and a brief report taken from the paramedic who'd brought Mac to the hospital. Wading through the medical jargon she barely understood, Riley scanned the report for something she could make sense of.

Her eyes froze on the screen. After a long second, she tore her eyes away to look up at Jack.

"He had a seizure?" she whispered. Bozer stiffened beside her.

"He what?"

Jack rubbed a hand over his face, not looking at either of them.

"In the ambulance," he said, voice low and rough. His gaze was haunted as he glanced behind him at the spot where Mac's bed should've been. A long second dragged by, and then another. "They gave him something to stop it."

The silence that followed was thick and stifling. Riley's gut was roiling, her whole body cold.

She'd seen Mac two days ago. Just two days, and he'd been his usual vibrant, cheerful self. Sure, his arm had been in a sling, but it hadn't made him miss a beat. Hell, he'd been teasing Jack for worrying about him. How had that vital, healthy young man ended up seizing in an ambulance?

She put a hand over her mouth, blinking eyes that stung.

"Hey, hey, none of that, now." Riley looked up to see Jack crouching before her. He put one hand on her shoulder and used the other to sweep a stray lock of hair out of her face. "You know Mac, he'll be fine. He always is. He's probably already awake again, trying to turn the MRI machine into a refrigerator."

He gave her a small, encouraging smile. It might have made her feel better had she not known him too well to miss the monumental effort behind it, the fear still lurking in his eyes.

Still, it wouldn't do any of them any good to fall apart before they knew anything. So she made herself nod and give Jack a tremulous smile in return. She nudged her elbow into Bozer's side until he nodded too.

"Yeah," he said. "Mac's come through worse than this. He's probably...he's probably telling the doctors how to make brain surgery more efficient, or something."

They managed to keep up the exchange of jokes for a few more minutes, but it wasn't long before their forced good spirits dried up and they lapsed back into grim silence.

Of course, there was never really silence in an ER. Riley could hear the quiet chatter of nurses and doctors, of patients and their families. She heard the managed commotion of a new patient being brought in through the ambulance entrance; apparently some college kid who'd partied a little too hard and was puking his guts up. She heard a doctor telling someone that the fracture wouldn't need surgery, and that he could go ahead and put a cast on there. He heard someone trying to wheedle their way out of a blood draw.

Twenty minutes had crawled by before Riley heard the sound of footsteps right outside the door though, followed by the rattle of the privacy curtain being drawn back.

"Dr. Brown," Jack said before Riley had even turned around in her seat.

He rushed towards the stout, white-haired woman in navy scrubs that had appeared in the doorway. She held up a hand to fend off the questions she could no doubt sense coming, and glanced at Riley and Bozer.

"Riley Davis, Wilt Bozer," Jack said, pointing at them as he said their names. "They're good friends of Mac's, and they can hear whatever you have to say about him."

As Mac's medical power of attorney, Riley supposed Jack had the legal right to make that decision, since Mac...couldn't.

"All right," Dr. Brown said. "We're still trying to isolate the exact problem, but I've admitted Mac for further testing and care. He'll be moved to the ICU once his scans are finished."

Hearing 'ICU' was like getting kicked in the chest. Riley shot a quick glance at Jack, who had paled again.

“Hey, listen,” he said. “We were thinking, if you still don’t know what’s wrong; there’s a better than iffy chance Mac was actually poisoned. We’re working on finding an antidote, but if there’s something you could do to, uh, hurry the process along on this end…”

Dr. Brown’s eyebrows had risen a bit, but she displayed little other reaction to the theory.

“A basic toxicology panel is already in the works,” she said. “But from what I’ve seen, and what you’ve already told me, I think Mac’s existing wound is the more likely culprit.”

“You mean the infection?” Jack asked. “Okay, so can’t you just, you know, give him some antibiotics, add water, wait for results?”

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," Dr. Brown said gently. "Mac was already on antibiotics as a precaution for his shoulder, which means his infection has likely been caused by an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria. I've ordered a much more aggressive course of antibiotics, and some tests to try to isolate the strain, but it's his symptoms in the meantime that concern me."

She paused, and Riley crossed her arms over her abdomen, trying to brace herself for whatever was coming next. She found herself instinctively leaning towards Jack, who wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Are any of you familiar with a condition called sepsis?" Dr. Brown asked. When Jack and Bozer shook their heads, she launched into what sounded like a practiced explanation. "It's a class of infection that's associated with a disproportionate inflammatory response. Its symptoms vary and are extremely unpredictable.Among other things, sepsis can cause problems with blood flow and organ function, including the brain."

"Which is why Mac..." Bozer began, but trailed off, apparently unwilling to put into words what had happened to his friend.

"I believe so," Dr. Brown said with a nod. "Again, this can't be confirmed until a few more results come in, but this is the assumption we're working under. Sepsis is unfortunately very common, although less so for someone Mac's age. Now, sepsis doesn't always affect the brain, but I think Mac is experiencing what's called sepsis associated encephalopathy, or SAE. There are a lot of theories about what causes SAE, but we don't have a great understanding of it yet, which means we mostly have to manage symptoms while we treat the underlying infection."

"Okay, but...I mean it's not fatal or anything, right?" Jack said. "You can treat him?"

"We can and will treat him, rigorously," Dr. Brown said. "But I won't lie to you; sepsis can be fatal. About a quarter of a million people die from it every year in the US alone. The fact that Mac is showing signs of SAE is especially concerning."

Riley felt as though the breath had been sucked from her lungs.

"Look, Doc," Jack said. "All due respect to your medical expertise, but I've got Mac expertise. He's tough; he's gonna make it."

"I certainly hope so," Dr. Brown said, not seeming to take offense to the confrontational tone. She was probably used to it. "Mac does have youth and previous good health on his side. But I'm afraid that even if he does survive, he'll likely still suffer from some permanent consequences."

"What kind of consequences?" Riley asked, finding her voice again for the first time since the doctor had entered.

Dr. Brown sighed, focusing on her.

"Remember how I said the causes and symptoms of sepsis are complicated and unpredictable?" she asked. "That goes for the lasting side effects too. At this point, any outcome I predicted wouldn't be much better than a blind guess."

"Worst case scenario, then."

"It's way too early to think about that kind of-”

"I'll just look it up anyway," Riley argued, lifting her chin.

Dr. Brown pursed her lips, but said, "Worst case scenario, assuming Mac lives: he suffers permanent organ and brain damage."

*****

"Bullshit," Jack barked into the sudden silence. The other three jumped, startled by his vehemence. He might have felt worse about scaring them, but he couldn't think about much besides what the doctor had just told him. "Bullshit," he repeated, trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. "Not Mac. Not our boy. No way."

He looked to Riley and Bozer, waiting for them to back him up. Mac couldn't suffer brain damage; he was _Mac_. His brain could run circles around every other brain in this hospital.

But Riley's dark eyes were wide and shining with unshed tears, and Bozer looked like he was already thinking through a future without his best friend.

"Jack," Dr. Brown said, her voice low and gentle.

He flinched away from her as if she'd slapped him, and shook his head. Mac would prove her wrong. He'd prove her wrong like he'd proven so many others wrong. Until then, what did it matter what she thought his chances were? Besides, there was still a high likelihood that Mac had been poisoned, and Matty would be calling them any minute now with the name and its antidote.

Clenching his fists, Jack did his best to rein himself in, not wanting to get thrown out of the hospital for making a scene.

"We need to see him," he said, his voice at a more acceptable volume now, although still tight with strain.

"I'll have one of the nurses take you to his room, although he may not be there when you arrive." The doctor opened her mouth as if to say something else, to try to convince him to start accepting reality, but then she switched tacks. "Mac's care is being transferred to another doctor, now that he's being admitted. Dr. Rein has more experience with cases like this, and he'll explain things to you in more detail. He's very good at what he does, and he'll make sure Mac has his very best chance."

And with that, she seemed to have washed her hands of them. After bidding them farewell and expressing her good wishes for Mac, she disappeared to see to another patient, leaving behind three people whose worlds had been shaken to the foundation. 

*****

The trip through the winding halls of the hospital was a bit of a blur for Jack. The only reality was Riley's hand in his, and he gripped it tight as they followed a nurse who looked like she wanted to be there about as much as they did.

Jack's whole body felt like lead, but also charged with useless energy. There was a band around his chest, keeping air from getting in.

He'd seen Mac in a whole range of conditions. He'd seen him drunk, drugged, exhausted, giddy, even broken, bruised, and bloody. But he'd never seen Mac in the kind of condition he'd been in strapped to that ambulance gurney.

_He's seizing_ , the EMT had said, her voice still modulated and professional but that much more urgent than it'd been a moment before. The words had been like a spear of ice stabbed into Jack, and he'd twisted around in the front passenger seat they'd made him take, straining for a glimpse of his partner. All he'd been able to see was the paramedic's uniformed back though, hear the orders he barked at the EMT.

So lost was he in his thoughts that it took him a moment to realize they'd stopped moving. He looked around, and realized they were standing outside the sliding glass door of a patient room. The privacy curtain was drawn back far enough to show that Dr. Brown's prediction had been incorrect; Mac was in there.

Letting go of Riley at last, Jack hurried into the room. He faltered at the threshold, thrown a little by the sight of his partner lying icy pale and motionless among a nest of wires and tubes. He didn't slow for long though, and soon he was leaning over Mac's bed, reaching out to clasp his good shoulder.

"Hey, buddy," he said, keeping his tone light. "I don't think all the beauty sleep in the world's gonna help you, so why don't - Mac?"

He'd been so prepared for Mac to be out cold that it was almost a shock to see familiar blue eyes blinking open in response to his voice. Relief punched him in the gut. Screw what the doctor had said - she didn't know Mac.

"Hey," he said again, smiling as Mac's eyes fixed on him. He could feel Riley and Bozer clustering close beside him, but he was entirely focused on his partner. "I see you agreed with me about the beauty sleep; that's good. You should agree with me about more things, like not taking handcuffs off of murdery lunatics."

Mac just blinked at him, eyes clouded with something that poked a sickening hole in the sudden swell of Jack's relief. The young man frowned up at him, as if searching for something. But then Mac's brow smoothed, the relief of recognition relaxing his features.

"Dad," he murmured, eyelids drooping again. "You came back."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update took so long. I should be able to get the next one done a little faster.
> 
> Huge thanks to [whumplove](https://whumplove.tumblr.com/) for the help with the medical aspects of this chapter.

Riley watched the blood drain from Jack's face, watched his expression twist in breathtaking pain before he forced it smooth again.

"C'mon now, dude,” he said, giving Mac's shoulder the lightest of shakes. "A less understanding guy might get offended by the insinuation that I look old enough to be your father."

He was still trying to play this off as something less serious than it was, although whether it was for his own benefit or hers and Bozer's, Riley didn't know. She wished it was working.

"You _do_ look old enough to be his father, Jack," she said, not having the heart to watch him flounder. She hoped her attempt wasn't as transparent as his. "Not me though, right Mac?"

She peered down at her friend, hoping his confusion with Jack had just been a fluke.

Responding to the shake of his shoulder, Mac had blinked bleary eyes open again. He gave her an affable smile, and then glanced around the room. His brow wrinkled.

“Where are we?” he asked, his voice thick and slurred. “’s this a hospital?”

“Well, it ain’t the Ritz,” Jack said.

The joke didn’t seem to appease Mac. His frown deepened into an expression of urgent concern, and he struggled to sit up.

“Someone’s hurt?” he asked. He focused on Jack. “Dad? D’they hurt you?”

“Hey, Mac, it’s okay,” Bozer said, reaching out to put a hand on Mac’s good shoulder to stop him from moving. “Everyone’s fine, man. You’re the patient.”

After squinting at him, Mac seemed to recognize Bozer. He slumped back against his bed, seeming exhausted by the brief activity.

“I’m the patient?” he checked. Bozer nodded, and Mac relaxed. “Okay.”

Riley had to fight down the irrational urge to chuckle at his easy contentment. As if being the patient himself meant nothing at all was amiss.

With that taken care of, Mac refocused on Jack. He was blinking slowly, and Riley knew he wouldn’t be among the conscious much longer.

“You’ll stay?” he asked Jack, voice doubtful but imploring.

Pain flooded back into Jack’s expression, but he nodded. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t seem to force any words out. Mac’s gaze slid sideways to Bozer, and he fumbled for his friend’s hand.

"Promise me." His brow wrinkled as he concentrated on getting the words out, on fighting the drowsiness that was clearly smothering him. "Boze - promise you won't let my dad leave." 

Riley put one hand over her mouth and the other on Jack's shoulder. She could feel the tension in him, could feel the way he was shaking ever so slightly.

"Mac, your dad..." Bozer took an unsteady breath, blinking hard. "Yeah. Okay, man. I promise."

Another smile broke out over Mac's face. It faded moments later as he let his eyes slip closed again. 

*****

Jack didn't bother shutting the door behind him as he fled the room that suddenly felt as claustrophobic as the pine box he’d nearly burned alive in. So he could hear the words Bozer said to Riley as he beat his hasty retreat.

"Jack was right. He had to be right; Mac's gonna be fine. He's a little loopy from the fever, but...he's Mac. No bacteria is a match for his crazy brain. No way."

Hearing it in someone else's voice, hearing it after what had just happened in that room...it sounded false, like a pipe dream.

_Dad. You came back._

The restless energy was building to a peak inside him, painful and boundless. If Jack didn't find some way to let it out, he was going to explode.

But he was in a hospital. There were no bad guys for him to hit, no dangers to run towards or people to protect. He'd already failed that part.

_You’ll stay?_

Jack had been striding aimlessly, but he jerked to a dead stop, covering his face with his hands and pressing his palms into his eyes.

"Hey."

He heard the voice, but it didn't register, not really.

"Dalton."

A light punch landed on his thigh. He dropped his hands and looked down into Matty's concerned gaze. He hadn’t known she was coming, but her presence didn’t surprise him.

"What did they find at the house?" Jack asked her, remembering his earlier hope of a reversible poison rather than the terrifying uncertainty of a sepsis diagnosis.

The question earned him a frown.

"They've only been there for half an hour, Jack," she said. "They collected samples, but nothing's been more than field tested yet."

"Okay, and?"

" _And_ they haven't found anything suspicious. If they do, you’ll know the moment I do. But Jack…I called the ER on the way here. They said they found no reason to believe this was anything but a normal infection.”

Even as he shook his head, Jack found he couldn’t argue with her. The memories of that room surfaced again, threatening to choke him.

There was a bulletin board on the wall next to him, bursting with posters and flyers and reminders. One of them informed Jack about the importance of covering his mouth when he sneezed.

"The dangerous part was supposed to be over," he muttered, shaking his head. His hands flexed, his jaw clenched and unclenched. "He took a hit, but he was supposed to be fine."

"Jack, listen to me." Matty waited until Jack forced himself to look at her again. "There was nothing you could've done to prevent this. He probably picked up the infection here in the hospital; they're cesspools. Everyone did everything right, but sometimes that's not enough."

"I could've stopped that creep from shooting him in the first place," Jack growled. "I could've checked on him sooner. I could've not sat there with a damn _snack_ while he was-" He broke off rather than finishing that sentence.

"And remind me how beating yourself up over things you couldn't have known helps Mac?"

Jack shook his head again, turning away from her. He paced, but not far; tracking a short path back and forth in front of his boss. He could feel Matty's eyes on him, but he didn't meet them.

_You came back._

"How could anyone leave him?" he burst out, jabbing a finger behind him at Mac's room. "This whole time, I've been telling Mac to cut his old man some slack, that family's family, and it ain't perfect but it's worth it. But what kind of father - hell, what kind of _person_ leaves their kid without a word, thinking he did something wrong, and falls off the face of the Earth? What kind of guy turns their back on someone like Mac?"

"Why are we talking about Mac's father?"

Jack let out a ragged breath. Much as he trusted Matty, he remembered Mac’s suspicions about her connection to his father, remembered his frustration and worry as he’d shared them.

"It doesn't matter," he said.

He looked away again, running his hands through his hair before interlocking his fingers behind his head. He dragged in another harsh breath, his stomach twisting itself into knots.

"Guys?"

They both turned to see Riley, looking at them from the doorway to the ICU. Jack had been doing his level best to keep up a strong front for her and Bozer, and he forced his spine to straighten, tried to wipe any traces of fear and desperation from his face.

"Yeah, what is it?"

If she was there with more bad news, Jack wasn't sure how he was going to handle it.

"The new doctor’s here. I figured you guys would want to hear what he had to say."

As painful as being in Mac’s room had been, there was no way Jack wasn't going to answer that summons. But a moment after stepping through the doorway, Jack froze, gut lurching.

"What the hell is that?" he demanded, breaking out of his shock and closing the distance to Mac's bedside in three strides.

He reached out, fingers aching to claw away the contraption strapped over Mac's face. It looked like some kind of torture device, sinister and suffocating.

"Woah, Jack, it's okay," Bozer said, putting a hand on Jack's chest to hold him back. "It's helping him breathe."

Jack didn't fight him, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from the mask. It covered half of Mac's face, held in place by dark straps circling his head. A thick plastic tube connected it to a machine by the bed.

"You must be Jack." The new voice made him turn, and he saw a man in his thirties standing next to Riley, dressed in standard dark scrubs and white coat. Jack nodded, and the man reached out a hand. "I'm Dr. Rein. I'll be responsible for Mac’s care."

Nodding again, Jack gave his hand a cursory, distracted shake.

"What is that?" he asked again, waving a hand behind him.

"It's called a BiPAP. It's helping to keep Mac's airway open and supplying a high concentration of oxygen. We found high levels of CO2 in his blood, which tells us his body wasn't getting rid of it effectively."

"Is that what was causing his…?” Jack tapped his temple.

"It's one of the possibilities. Too much CO2 in the blood can cause a wide range of problems, including confusion, disorientation, and delirium."

Jack cast a glance down at Mac. The young man's eyes were closed, his expression slack and empty.

"So this'll fix him?"

"It's too soon to say that," Dr. Rein cautioned. Jack was already tired of hearing those words. "This is more to help manage symptoms than to treat the underlying issues, which we're doing with an aggressive course of antibiotics."

He launched into a more detailed explanation than the one Dr. Brown had provided. As he talked, Jack kept glancing down at his partner. Mac would've understood what the doctor was saying, would've been engaged and asking questions, fascinated by the complex processes taking place inside him. But to Jack, it was overwhelming, terrifying.

Jack wanted to ask about Mac's brain, about what his chances were, but he couldn't work up the courage to hear the answer. Matty asked instead.

"I'm afraid I can't give you any satisfying answers right now," Dr. Rein told them. "Sometimes people with SAE come out of it with no lasting problems, but most of the time there's something. It can be as mild as the kind of attention lapses and trouble focusing that you might see with a concussion, or as serious as dementia or impaired neuromuscular control."

There was a long beat of ringing silence in the room. Jack's gut churned as he imagined his partner without that astonishing intellect of his, that small but radiant smile he got whenever he puzzled through a complex problem, that quiet satisfaction of an invention coming together just right. Nothing would ever change how much he valued Mac, how much he cared for him like a little brother or a son, but he knew that would be small consolation to Mac himself.

"Why wouldn't he tell us something was wrong?" Bozer asked, interrupting Jack's spiraling thoughts.

Jack glanced over at him. Bozer looked dazed, shellshocked. But also just the slightest bit angry.

"If he'd said something, we could've helped him sooner," he continued, glancing at his sleeping friend.

"He may not have known anything was seriously wrong. In some SAE cases, the neurological symptoms show up before the usual sepsis symptoms do. He might have just been feeling a little off and decided to take a nap. He had no way of knowing he wouldn't wake up from it."

Jack felt his jaw clench. Part of him was grateful to hear the doctor's words. He himself had been questioning whether or not Mac could have prevented any of this by not being a thickheaded idiot. The last thing he wanted was to be angry at Mac for something he didn't do.

But he did want someone, some _thing_ to be angry at.

"I wanna know how this happened in the first place," he said. "Dr. Brown said healthy young people like Mac hardly ever get sepsis, so why him? What went wrong?"

If this guy told him there was no way to know, he was going to need treatment of his own for high blood pressure or possibly a psychotic break.

"Well, we may never know for sure," Dr. Rein said, and Jack felt a vein in his forehead start to pulse. But then he continued, "But I did notice Mac has some burns on his hands that are still healing?"

Jack froze. He would never forget those burns. Would never forget how Mac had gotten them.

"He got those a couple weeks ago," Matty said.

"Well, burns like that tend to compromise the immune system. That may have made Mac more vulnerable to the bacteria that are causing his infection now."

Jack slammed his fist into the nearest wall.

*****

"Jack," Matty snapped into the shocked silence, pointing a manicured finger at the door behind her. "Walk with me. Now."

She didn't wait to see if he was following before she marched from Mac's room. She could hear the pad of his footsteps on the tiled floor behind her, the rapid huffs of his harsh breathing.

When they were out of the ICU and back in the hallway she'd first found him in, she stopped walking and rounded on him.

"You need to pull it together, right now," she said, stern tone brooking no argument. She hardened her heart against the pain she could see in his face, the anguish of fear and worry and guilt. "You didn't do this to Mac, and you won't help him by losing it every time there's bad news."

"I didn't do this to him? Seriously? I’m sorry, were you in the same room I was just now? Or did you forget how Mac got those burns, because I sure didn't."

Matty glowered at him.

"What was he supposed to do, Jack? Leave you in that incinerator? He's your partner; watching out for you is just as much his job as yours is to watch out for him. Besides," she raised her voice a little when she could see Jack was about to start arguing with her. "There's a thousand other things that could've gone wrong to get him here. So I repeat: you. Did. Not. Do. This. But if you didn't just get yourself banned from this hospital, you can still help him now, still be his partner. Do you think you can do that, or do I need to call someone to come pick you up?"

She held his gaze without flinching as he glowered at her. His anger wasn't directed at her, and she'd handled worse. She remembered as well as anyone what Jack had been like when Riley was running her first solo undercover op, how his fear for her had made him lash out, unreasonable and barely in control.

"I'm not leaving this hospital until Mac does," Jack said at last, shoulders slumping a little as some of the fight drained out of him. He scowled. "Or until someone tells me where Murdoc is, so I can go punch his face in."

Matty bit back a sigh. She too wished for the chance to get her hands on Murdoc. She felt the sting of his escape just as acutely as Jack, maybe even more so. She was the one who'd authorized Murdoc's visit with his son, the one who’d only posted a single guard in the room with them. Ultimately, that failure was hers, and she was determined to see it corrected.

“Understood,” was all she said. She would need Bozer and Riley to return to work, to redouble their efforts to find Murdoc, but Jack would be more of a liability than an asset in his current state. “Now wait here until I smooth things over with Dr. Rein.”

She turned away from her old friend, but the sound of his voice stopped her from heading back into Mac’s room.

"He can't- he can't be brain damaged.” 

She glanced back to find him giving her a helpless look. 

“It would kill him, Matty. I mean it would just- it would wreck him."

“I know,” Matty sighed.

Mac would rather lose a leg than that spark of genius. If there was enough of him left to understand what he'd lost, he would be devastated.

"But we don't know for sure yet that he's got any brain damage at all. He might still be completely fine. And no matter what happens, he'll have us.”

With no more comfort left to offer, she left him.

*****

Jack didn’t know exactly what Matty had done to secure permission for him to stay in Mac’s room overnight, but he was grateful for it. Not that he expected to get much sleep that night, despite the padded lounge chair they’d brought for him. Not with Mac trapped in an uncertain battle mere feet from him.

He was almost right. Hospitals never slept, and Jack found himself hyper-aware of every slight sound and movement in the unit. Patients shifted and groaned and summoned nurses. Staff spoke quietly to one another, exchanging notes or chatting about weekend plans or how tired they were. Once, a new patient was brought to the unit in a flurry of quiet activity.

But there was something oddly soothing about the silences that fell between these spurts of noise. It wasn’t silence at all, broken as it was by the hum of central AC and the quiet whirs and beeps of machinery and the Darth Vader whooshing of Mac’s mask. It was the sound of things being taken care of, under control, and despite the sick knot of worry twisting Jack’s gut, it lulled him into a light doze.

And then a new sound broke through the relative peace. It was the atonal shriek of an alarm, and it had Jack on his feet, heart pounding, before he even realized he was awake. His first instinct was to rush to Mac’s bedside, but the alarms weren’t coming from his partner’s monitors.

It wasn’t until he’d stuck his head outside and seen the rush of people headed for another patient’s room that he began to understand. He knew there was nothing he could do, but he still felt drawn to the scene, like a spectator to a train wreck.

The staff was poised and professional, urgent but not shouting orders at one another like hormonal doctors on TV shows. He didn’t understand everything they were saying to one another, everything they were doing for their patient, but he caught enough to gather that her heart had stopped.

He lost track of how long he stood there, listening. Long enough for him to hear the tone of the staff shift, to sense their controlled urgency fading into defeat. Long enough for him to get a terrifying glimpse of what might wait in their future.

He didn’t even try to sleep the rest of the night, just pulled out his phone and began to do his own research on sepsis. He’d been browsing for less than twenty minutes before he had to shut his phone off in a hurry, resisting the urge to throw the damn thing across the room.

*****

When the morning rolled around at last, Riley and Bozer stopped in on their way to Phoenix. Mac was still asleep though, and none of them could quite muster up the courage to try to wake him. Not when success could bring about more bad news.

They lingered for a few minutes anyway, mostly checking in on Jack. He was pretty sure they didn’t believe him when he told them he was fine, but they all knew that only one thing would make him feel better. So, after making him promise to let them know the instant anything changed, they left to try to find the bastard that had done this to their friend.

Left alone with Mac again, Jack suddenly found he couldn’t stand the silence. So he started to fill it.

“You know, they’re pretty worried about you, man,” he told Mac. “Riley and Bozer; heck, I think you’ve even got Matty sweating, and you know that’s not easy to do. So if you wanna do something nice for them, you might think about waking up and telling them you’re gonna be fine.”

He watched Mac for a moment. Part of him felt a little ridiculous when he was disappointed by the lack of response he got.

“Of course, I’m not worried about you at all,” he said. “I know better. You like it when things get down to the wire; you can’t hide it from me. You know that the worse things are, the more impressed we all have to be when you pull a miracle out of your ass.”

Jack leaned forward in his chair, until his elbows were resting on the rail of Mac’s bed. He blew out a heavy breath, eyes on his partner’s pale face.

“Well, I promise to be real impressed this time, Mac. You beat this, and I’ll let you brag about it for the rest of our lives. I’ll tell the stories at parties, if you want. Hell, I’ll have a big old banner made that says ‘CONGRATS ON BEATING SEPSIS’. Glittery font and everything. Whole nine yards.”

Mac still didn’t answer though, and Jack closed his eyes. He struggled to pull a deep breath into lungs that had gone tight.

“Okay.” He straightened up, folded his arms over his chest. “That’s how you want to play this? Fine. But just so you know, the only way to make me shut up is to wake up and tell me to.”

And he proceeded to ramble about nothing at all. It was a skill of his, one he usually employed when a situation was tense and he could tell his teammates needed a friendly voice. He’d gotten a lot of practice over the years, in the military, the CIA, now with Phoenix. He could outlast Mac if he had to.

He’d gotten halfway through a scene-by-scene analysis of _Casino Royale_ when the sight of Mac’s hazy eyes blinking open erased every thought of British spies from his head.

“Hey there,” he said, managing a smile as he leaned into Mac’s line of sight.

Relief washed through him when Mac’s eyes found his at once.

"Dad." Mac smiled at Jack, and then frowned as he seemed to register the mask covering his face. He lifted a hand to tug at it, but Jack reached out to catch his wrist.

"It's all right," he said, trying to ignore the way his insides seemed to have been replaced with broken glass. "Don't touch that."

Mac lowered his hand obediently and refocused on Jack. He said something, but the layers of plastic over his mouth muffled the words. Enough trickled through for Jack to gather that the gist of it was something along the lines of _you’re still here_.

The words hit Jack like a punch to the nuts, but he did his best not to let the pain show on his face.

"'Course I'm still here," he said, pasting on a smile and clapping a hand over Mac's blanket-covered knee. He leaned in, holding Mac's clouded gaze. "I'm your partner, man. I'm always gonna be here."

Mac blinked at him. Jack recognized the expression on his face. It was the one he wore when he knew something was off, but hadn't figured out what yet.

“Y’re not my dad," he said at last.

Jack wasn't sure what made him want to cry more; the fact that Mac was with it enough to recognize the fact that Jack wasn't his father, or the heartbreak in his voice as he said the words.

"No, buddy," he said. "I'm not."

“He left?”

Jack squeezed Mac's knee, swallowing hard.

"Yeah, he did, Mac," he managed. "But you and me, we're gonna find him together, soon as you're feeling better, all right?"

Mac peered at him for a moment before nodding. Jack knew he should probably leave it there, launch into more inane rambling about nothing in order to fill the silence and make himself feel better, but he couldn't help it.

"Mac," he said, clearing his throat when his voice cracked. He tried for a smile. "Mac, do you know who I am?"

Mac seemed to have gotten distracted by the ceiling tiles, but he looked at Jack when he repeated his name. A wrinkle of concentration formed in his brow.

"You're my friend," he decided.

It was a long moment before Jack could say anything.

"That's right," he managed. "That's damn right."

But Mac was no longer looking at him. His eyes had gone glassy and unfocused, as if none of the world around him was registering. His eyelids began to flutter.

"Mac?"

As if in response to the anxious query, Mac began to seize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else really not a fan of James MacGyver? I wrote most of this chapter before I saw the finale, and I feel both vindicated and sad for Mac, who deserves better.


End file.
